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COLUMBUS, OH, Sep. 15, 2011 - The Chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents (BOR) and The Ohio State University will enter into an agreement regarding the operations and management of the newly formed Ohio Technology Consortium, or OH-TECH.

By merging the Ohio Academic Resources Network, Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC), Ohio Learning Network (OLN) and shifting all IT personnel from OhioLINK into a single consortium, the chancellor can leverage existing strengths for each organization and trim administrative costs, technological and management duplication and inefficiency.

OH-TECH will function as the umbrella organization for OSC's cutting-edge research, and OARnet's expansion of the broadband network to Ohio higher education, K-12 schools and state and local government. The consortium will also provide the IT infrastructure to the BOR and offer cutting-edge and innovative student services for higher education customers in Ohio.

"By establishing a more efficient technology consortia, we will be better able to allocate resources and more effectively concentrate on the core mission - to advance higher education," said Ohio Board of Regents Chancellor Jim Petro.

After factoring in potential severance costs associated with the staff reductions, the consolidation results in estimated savings of $650,000 for the first year. Once the merger of the consortia is complete, the goal will be to look for additional efficiencies of operation within the organizations.